Who We Are (What Will We Be Together?)
by bookstvnerdlove
Summary: A collection of poetry and drabbles from my tumblr account. Some are more romantic than others, so I'm giving it an M rating. Intimacy and relationships don't come easily to either of them, but they're learning as they go. The stories are not all connected, but they all share the same theme.
1. Falling

**Falling**

He can feel her hand slipping out of his grasp, into the bright orange. And he knows that it's magic and not flames but he can't help the fear that somehow she will catch fire and be consumed and he will never see her again.

(He's trying to forget all of her hurtful words, though it proves difficult when she's telling him to just let go and to save himself. That's when he makes the decision that this is it. He will follow her and they will reverse the spell and if she is still running away from him he will let her go.)

Just as he comes to his decision her hand slides fully from him and she's falling. But he pushes himself off the floor of the barn and then he is falling too, until everything turns black.

When she wakes up, body crumpled on the ground, surrounded by trees she finds that he is there. Body lying prone next to hers, groaning in pain, but not fully awake. She leans over to shake him (_Killian, Killian!_) when she notices that her ribs are so tight and her legs are heavy with fabric. (_Oh crap, oh crap, it's a dress and the forest, and she's back. But this time it's different._)

She looks over at him, wondering why he is there. She knows the pirate can read it all over her face because he just quirks his brow and says, "I was not going to let you face this alone."

(And something clicks inside her that started when he was drowning and she realizes what a fool she's been. And she swears that she'll tell him. But first they have to save everybody. Again.)


	2. Free

**Free**

Softness. That is his first thought as her lips seek his, focused solely on the sensation of finally, finally, kissing her again. Her lips are so soft.

(He's not ready to think about the events that led to this. The bust of magic that instantly lifted the pressure around his rotten heart. He's comfortable with the idea of love, having spent hundreds of years to avenge its demise. But True Love? That is for princes like David. Not for him.)

Her hands thread through his hair, grasping, tightening. And suddenly everything changes. Her lips start pulling, biting, a sense of urgency building inside him. He pushes her up against the door, hips pinning her into place.

(He knows that she should be with her family, now that the witch is defeated, but he can't help but be selfish. There was a part of him that reveled in his punishment, knowing that he did not deserve her.)

But right now, in the moment, he can't bring himself care. Not when her hands slide down his neck to the collar of his coat until she's pushing it back, and it falls down his arms, to the floor. Not when he can bury his face into her neck, growling, nipping at her skin, hips still driving into her as her leg slides up his, wrapping around him.

Her lips part and she moans softly as his hand sneaks under her shirt, his knuckles grazing her softly before reaching around to unclasp her bra.

(He'll want to see her in that later, noting the delicate lace and silky fabric. But for now, he needs to feel her bare skin against his, limbs entwined. She is his benediction.)


	3. Rings

**Rings**

She's never been with a man who wore jewelry before. Even though he's traded in his leather pants for tight black jeans and his ornate vest for something in a more breathable fabric, he still wears his earring, necklace, and those rings. ("What did you think, darling? Just because we shared a true love kiss that I would start dressing like your father?") He reminds her on a weekly basis. Though she likes to think that it's really because he is in awe of them.

What does true love even mean? She always wonders, as his hand brushes against hers in the hallway of the loft, or under the table at Granny's. sometimes (late at night at the docks) he will grab her hand fully, fingers entwined, until the cool metal of his rings seem to burn into her skin with the warmth of their shared bodies.

One day he forgets to put them on as they rush out of the loft, running late to pick up Henry ("Come on, love. We can be quick about it.") Every time his hand touches her that day, she feels their absence. She misses the pressure they placed on her fingers, digging into her skin, into her heart. As if feeling him simply beside her was not enough.

Later that night she asks what they mean to him. And he spends hours telling her tales of his early days at sea. ("You probably wouldn't have liked me much, love." She just shrugs, "But I like you now.")


	4. Scream

**Scream**

her back against the wall,

his hand sliding up her chest,

stopping at her collarbone as he leans in and brushes his lips against hers.

his voice soft and seductive,

_i'm going to make you scream, darling_.

his hand moving up her neck landing tangled in her hair,

pulling roughly, exposing her neck,

lips traveling to her favorite spot below her ear.

finding herself spun around until she's facing the wall,

hand sliding up the wall to steady,

his body aligned along her back,

crowding her,

making her desperate.

his fingers slipping,

lower and lower,

finding her.

pleasing her.

moving faster and faster, until —

she moans his name,

long and languid.

he places a soft kiss at the base of her neck,

and whispers, _love._


	5. Excite

**Excite**

Cold metal sliding along skin,

Tearing through lace and silk.

Shouldn't excite her,

She shouldn't wish for it to defile her,

So thoroughly.


	6. Silk

**Silk**

He's felt it since their first kiss in Neverland. (Or is it really their second? How does one count time travel?) that ghost of a sensation, silky threads of hair slipping through his fingers.

So this time, as he tastes her lips again, he can't stop touching her hair. The first (second) time they kissed, he deflected her true expression of gratitude, and turned it into the only type of connection he could understand.

This time, when he tells her about the Jolly, he has no idea how she will react. All he knows is that he's tired of hiding that truth. And seeing the look in her eyes, the thanks practically making her glow, suddenly makes the loss of his ship, of his home, disappear.

And this time, she moves in slowly, instead of the crashing bravado, and he feels that silky sensation before his hand even reaches her hair.


	7. Games

**Games**

"So, you want to play pirate?" He growls as his hook slides down her bare arm. Not hard enough to leave a mark, but with just enough pressure that she knows who he is.

"Hmmm," she moans softly as his hand slides down her front, slipping into her pants, unbuttoned.

"I asked you a question, love," his voice hard, commanding. His hand hovers over the satin and lace, not pressing, just there waiting, maddeningly, teasing her.

She knows what he is doing. She's supposed to describe to him, in detail, all of the dirty, naughty things that she wants him to do to her. He'll wait patiently while she begs for his touch. But until she gives in he will remain still, reveling in her desperation.

Usually she likes this game. But she decided today that he's become far too sure of himself, and of her. She wants to throw him for a loop. She wants to see his eyes darken when he realizes just how far at her mercy he is. She wants him as desperate, as greedy as he wants her.

She raises her hips just enough that his fingers graze her, briefly sating the need that has built inside.

He slides his hand out of her pants and pushes her hips back down, "Ah, ah, ah, my dear. You know the rules."

"Maybe we need a new set of rules today," as she leverages her leg around his hips and flips them over, fluidly.

He grunts in surprise, but doesn't fight her so she rewards him with a soft lingering kiss.

She unlatches the hook from its home and she traces it along his abdomen before sliding the tip under his leathers, gently tugging.

"I'm going to be the captain this time."


	8. Friction

**Friction**

That delicious friction from his hips grinding into hers and feeling of her back sinking into the couch cushions.

His lips grazing her neck as he moans her name. (_Emma, Emma, love._)

Back in the system it was always janitors closets at school and cars parked somewhere dark.

It's a new sensation, the feeling of home, of _belonging_, along with the speeding of her heart and the tightness in her belly.

Comfort and sex should not fit so well. (It never has before in her experience). But with him, she wants everything.

She doesn't know how to say the words (yet). But she thinks he understands as she threads her fingers through his hair, pulling, guiding, until she can reach up and crush her lips to his.


	9. Touch

**Touch**

It's the small things, like the gentle slope of her neck as it curves into her shoulders.

He likes that he's allowed (now) to gently trace his finger along her skin. It's just a simple touch, but he's never been much for that before.

It used to tantalize him (then) the idea that one day he might get close enough to just breathe her in.

Sometime it amazes him how quickly a simple touch between them _ignites_ into something more.

But they were both so starved for this, the simple concept of _connection_, that is (sometimes) so daunting to give in to. It shouldn't surprise him, how _needy_ they become in the face of it.

His favorite part is the way she tries to suppress her moans, so self contained as if she's afraid that once she lets go, everything will be gone forever.

And that moment when she realizes that he's still there with her, eyes open and dark with such greed for him.

That's the moment where she feels safe enough to let go. And to fly.


	10. Ache

**The Ache of Touch**

He never expected the skin along her inner thighs to feel like satin, so smooth and alluring. His favorite thing about her is her strength, the raw power apparent in her arms and legs, all sinew and bone and muscle. He's used to the women from his realm with their curves on display and their skin rough from homespun soap. But in this realm, he thinks of the small bottles that line her bathroom sink and the hours he has spent watching her slide their contents along her bare skin. He can spend hours worshiping her skin, watching her body writhe and flush.

(He remembers the way Milah transformed from soft curves to strong muscle. How she could hoist a sail with the best of his men, how she used her legs to fight along his side. He sees the same power in Emma. He loves the way the painful ache of memory eases with every moment he is with her.)

Her favorite thing is the way that he licks his lips constantly throughout the day, unconsciously, making her think of sex at the most inappropriate times. She thinks about the way his lips nip at the sensitive skin on her neck and how he exerts just enough pressure with his teeth to send shivers across her body. Sometimes he spends what feels like hours on her legs, tongue and lips and teeth and always hovering closest to where she wants him, making her want to beg and plead to end her torment.

(She will never tell him, but she loves the way he teases her with his mouth. When they are completely bare for each other, vulnerability exposed, in ways that she never let somebody see her before. The way that his hand and his hook slide along her legs, the mixture of cold and hot making her bloom with need, the pressure of them as she sinks deep into the surface until she comes apart.)


	11. Words

**disclaimer: own nothing, adam/eddy your characters give me life. **

There are a thousand things she wants to say to Killian Jones. Most of the time she thinks of them when he's asleep and she watching him breathe. (chest rising up, falling down. up, down.) She never used to be shy with words before, when she had nothing but loneliness to lose - fighting words, angry words, seductive words, false words.

Sometimes she whispers them into his ear, when he's rolled over on his side. She slides her body along his back, listening to the way his body seems to just _sigh_ at her presence before her hand reaches around his body, gliding along his abdomen, loving how soft those patches of hair feel. (She doesn't know why she thought it would feel rough against her hands.) She likes to lean close to his ear and tell him the things that she knows he longs to hear - playful words, happy words, true words.

(She never used to believe in the power of words before. She remembers promises that were never fulfilled - nonsense words, useless words.)

She prefers to tell him how she feels with everything she does. She tells him that she loves him when she rents an apartment near the water so that he can be close to the sea. She tells him that she needs his love when she shows him her childhood scars. She tells him that he is her family when she sends him and Henry into the woods for a camping trip with David and Robin. She tells him she appreciates him when she welcomes them back the next day and washes the dirt out of his clothes - unspoken words.

(Years later. After three curses and one more trip back to the Enchanted Forest. She's finally convinced that he doesn't regret giving up his _home _for her, that she won't lose him to some quest to find his ship. So she tells him, "I love you," on a quiet night at the apartment. Henry's upstairs doing homework and they're lying on the couch, facing each other, legs tangled together while they ignore the moving playing in the background.)


	12. Inspired

**Inspired**

Sometimes, late at night when he finds it hard to sleep without feeling the steady rocking of the sea, Killian finds his way to the room that Swan calls the 'living room'. (A strange name, he finds, as if the other rooms in the apartment are not _lived_ in. But he stopped questioning the different rules and names and patterns of speech found in this realm long ago.)

After a few nights, he manages to figure out how the television works and quickly becomes addicted to watching the moving pictures that play, seemingly constantly, between the twilight and dawn hours. (He particularly likes the ones with romantic stories, as they make him think of _her_, and their current navigation of _together. _An old part of him, the young and idealistic naval lieutenant who clung to rules and regulations with a death grip, is somewhat scandalized by the amount of bare skin some of the pictures expose. Of course, another side of him finds them fascinating, cataloging images and replacing all of the women with Emma.)

Since discovering these _movies_, Killian determines that he must surprise Swan with gifts, which soon proves to be an impossible task. His first attempt to buy her flowers goes awry when the florist, a Mr. French (related to the Dark One's wife, he discovers later), refuses to haggle over prices and only accepts gold coin as payment after a series of threats and his stubborn refusal to leave the shop without the _specific_ flowers desired.

When he returns to the apartment that evening, buttercups in hand, he finds Emma waiting for him at the kitchen table with several sheets of paper in front of her. "I've already spoken to the bank," businesslike briskness in her tone, "We should be able to get to you set up tomorrow." He just sighs and hands over her flowers while she smiles broadly, "It's a small town Killian; people like to bother the Sheriff."

(The next day, they go down to the bank, walking hand in hand down the street, and add his name to her account. Of course, he insists on giving her all of his coin, which she ends up storing in a chest at the foot of her bed. He calls her a pirate, hoarding her treasure, which earns him much more than a kiss later that night.)

The next time he tries to surprise with a change of attire (as she keeps going on about how he's the only person left in Storybrooke who still looks like he dropped straight out of a Disney theme park, whatever _that_ is). Henry drags him to a clothing shop along the main street in town and begins to pile shirts and pants and jackets on his arm, ushering him into a _fitting room_. Sheriff Swan shows up at the shop not ten minutes later. When he tries to make eye contact with the shop girl, the lass blushes and her eyes skitter to and fro, avoiding the space surrounding him. Swan just shrugs and replies to his unasked question, "She was worried about possible damage to the clothes," and gestures at his hook.

(He ends up with new clothes anyway, as Swan calls David to take over her shift and helps him navigate the variety of garments available, sneaking kisses while Henry has his back turned. Just a quick press of her lips to his when she approves of a clothing choice, and an adorable scrunch of her nose when she does not.)

The one time he almost succeeds is when he enlists her lad to help him cook dinner after a particularly busy week at the station. (There is some sort of curse brewing he thinks, as the air maintains the same bitter chill when the sun is shining, as when it is not.) If not for a faulty wire in the stove that engulfed the entire kitchen in flame for a brief, frighting, moment, he would have been able to see Swan's eyes alight as she walked in the door to what Henry assured him was her favorite meal.

(Instead, she walks into the apartment with takeout from Granny's and, after dealing with the fire department, the three of them head over to David and Mary Margaret's to share the food and warmth. Despite his inability to bestow a surprise upon her, Killian finds that he doesn't mind the way things turn out, as he surveys the loft and the people in this family that has somehow become _his. _And while they do not fill the Liam- and Milah-shaped holes in his heart, they fill new spaces where he previously thought there was no room.)


	13. your heart, my heart

**your heart, my heart**

He gives her his heart to protect anew, every morning when she wakes up. With his smiles, sometimes full and sometimes smirking, it passes from his lips to hers as they press together, sometimes lingering, sometimes so briefly that it leaves her _wanting_.

(It's so easy for him, she thinks, to trust that she'll know what to do with it.)

He wakes up in her bed more mornings than not, sun shining in through the slats of her window shades. On the mornings the he doesn't, he knocks on her door, the smell of coffee or cocoa wafting from Granny's take-out cups.

(How he always seems to know which one she wants, she wonders, in awe of the way he reads her so _precisely_.)

He hasn't yet asked for her heart in return, though she sometimes wants him to. She's slow, she knows, to give herself to others. She tries and fails, some days, to have the same amount of faith as him. She can feel herself, at times, falling back into old patterns. The anger and frustration and loneliness clawing their way out of her mind and into her heart. She fears giving her heart to him those days in fear that she will break his skin and he will bleed and bleed beyond repair.

(He says to her, on occasion, if your parents can share one heart, then we can share my faith.)

The way he gives and expects nothing in return is what, eventually, allows her to share her heart with him, piece by piece, inching closer to its entirety every day.

(She needs to know, before she says _I love you, _that she understands exactly what love is.)


	14. Dreams

**dreams**

Sometimes he dreams of Milah, though the dreams are not like they were _before_.

(The number of times he awoke in a cold sweat, his mind replaying her death over and again on a hazy and drunken loop, are uncountable. Sometimes it would happen in his dreams exactly as it happened in life, crocodile holding her heart while all he got was her cold body. Other times it would be ever so slightly different, in a duel with the demon, or some other torture, always his fault, the end result always the same.)

The night he spent tied up in New York, sated with revenge, he didn't dream at all. After that, slowly, other dreams emerged. Now he dreams of happier things, fanciful twists of memory and imagination.

(He dreams of nights spent curled into each other in his bed or dueling on deck for show in front of his men. He dreams of how she could sit for hours, in one spot, sketching his face or Baelfire's from memory. He would always get restless after a while, life aboard ships from an early age curing him of idleness, but not Milah. He dreams about how her eyes would darken with want, how she taught him the best ways to please her, and of how she would join him in their bed wearing the most decadent sleeping gowns he could find, reveling in luxury.)

_Gods_, did they really do some of these things?

(Three hundred years is a long time to hold a memory pristine.)

Other times he dreams of Liam and those are always the same, a chronological progression, ending in tragedy.

(Liam finding him, he weak as an alley cat but with the same claws and snarls. Liam keeping him, pleading for the crown to allow him early passage into the naval academy. Liam teaching him what honor meant, the rules of good form and in dealings with others. Liam teaching him what honor does not mean, a corrupt monarch who chooses to destroy with magical obliteration.

He never dreams about his early days as a pirate, memories that keep quiet at night to haunt him at day.

(He remembers enough of the mixture of fierce anger and shame and early failures every time he faces a new danger to the town at Emma's side. He despairs at the idea of failing her.)

He rarely dreams of Emma, unless it is about fears of losing her to some evil force that always seems to be lurking about. Instead, he wakes her up with long, languid kisses, smirking at her exclaims of horror at her morning breath (what does a pirate care of that?) and sliding his hand along her smooth skin.

(After convincing him of a need for new attire, Emma likes to sleep in his shirts. Picking them up after they've exhausted themselves, clothing discarded across her apartment, buttoning them over her bare skin, long legs exposed. She purchases him shirt after shirt then steals them away. When he asks her why she doesn't just buy some for herself she laughs, a light twinkling sound in the candlelight, and tells him it's only fun after he's worn the shirt. The next day he finds all of them back in his drawer freshly laundered until the cycle begins again.)

He shares his dreams with Emma some mornings, except when he dreams of the future. Those dreams are too precious to him to express.

(That he has a future to even dream of at all is enough.)


	15. Fight

**Fight**

She's never been with somebody long enough to have this kind of fight before. The kind that starts about one thing and then spirals, twisting and twirling, into some far off land of dangerous words and hidden fears.

(She doesn't even remember how it started. She knows it was probably her fault. Snappish, non-trusting, cautious girl that she can be. But he_ knows_ this about her so why isn't he prepared when that particular version of her appears?)

They don't yell, which surprises her, given the passion with which Killian throws himself into every activity he undertakes and relationship he forges.

(The fierce bond that has grown between Henry and Killian never fails to delight her, even on the worst of days.)

Instead his tone is all polite injury, hers of spluttering frustration, as he asks her just what their relationship _means_ to her.

(And she's mystified that he even has to ask. Sure she hasn't yet said_ I love you_, like he does almost every day with the the look in his eyes as he calls her darling, or the small brushes of his hands against hers at every possible moment. But she says it in her own ways that she swore he could read.)

All she wants to do is yell at him to just read her mind, which is completely irrational, she knows. But for all his claims of _open book, love_, the man has clearly missed the point.

(She forgets, sometimes, that he's lived most of his long life slowly losing people, his companions dwindling down to zero, the deeper his quest for revenge took him. She forgets that he has loved and lost in a way foreign to her. For all that Graham died in her arms, he was a brief wisp of hope where Milah was the world - and the sun and the moon - to Killian.)

All she can think is that this is it. That he is finally tired of _trying_ so hard and that he will go. And he can't go, he can't go, she repeats it so many times in her head until the words burst out of her with a small, _please._

(_You are the stars_, he whispers later that night in bed, _vast and bright and infinite. __  
_

She rolls over in bed to clasp his face between her palms and she reassures to him, in between the press of lips, _you are mine, _and _I want you always._)


	16. Everything is Everything

**Everything is Everything**

Some days Killian thinks his favorite position is face to face, Emma on her back, body lithe, long lower limbs wrapped around his waist. He likes that he can brush her face with his hand, fingers tracing her flushed cheekbones, sometimes grasping her hair. (It falls around her head, glorious and golden. He is addicted to how silky it feels to touch and how it it looks against the midnight blue sheets in their bed.) He loves to watch her eyes, overtaken with pleasure, as she comes, her eyelashes fluttering as he leans in for a kiss. Lips clinging as he takes his own release, hips thrusting as he rides out her afterglow.

(He's never slept in a bed this big before, sprawling expanse of mattress and fabric. He always ends up on her side of the bed, close enough for her scent to invade his brain upon waking, curled around her back. She always grumbles that she is not a cuddler, but she usually falls back into his warmth anyway.)

(Some mornings, his favorite position is this, his hand snaking around to her front, sliding down her sleeping trousers, finding her so warm, wet, and ready for him, her voice not yet awake so she gasps in broken breaths as he slides in so gently. Just rocking slowly until their hearts race in sync.)

On the nights that Emma is drunk and bold he likes to match her rushed and rough race. His favorite on these nights is to whirl her about this way and that. Fully naked with her back up against the wall, breast bouncing, flushed and shiny with sweat, with his every thrust. Or Emma, kneeling on the couch, hands gripping the arm, his hook digging into her shoulder - just enough - and his hips rotating as he reaches the spot that makes her moan his name. Those nights where it's never enough and they both want more more more until they pass out, spent, on whatever surface they land upon.

(He's come to find that it does not matter how he has her, only that he does.)

(But that doesn't stop him from swiping copies of every erotic tome this realm has to offer - pirated away from the librarian with a wink - just in case.)


	17. It's Never Enough

**It's Never Enough**

She was worried, when they took those tentative first steps towards togetherness, that she would not know _how_ to do it. How to be with the same man, day in and day out. She always used to crave a simple release. (Different men. One night, one orgasm. Goodbye and thank you. )

Emma soon learns the beauty in belonging. The beauty of time, time to explore all the contours of a lover, his body, worn and weathered and all hers. The time to savor every inch of smooth skin and scarred skin, to discover the way he tastes, so salty and _familiar_.

(She also discovers the shape of his lips, from the way that they cling to hers and the way they feel as they travel down her body. The tingle she feels in her toes when his lips trace along her skin. The growing ache deep within as they wrap around her nipples, pulling and tugging. Her favorite is the way they feel shaping words against her skin, _come for me, _and _that's it, love, _and her favorite, _let go, darling_. Whispers against her body as his tongue and his teeth make her restless.)

(She learns that even after the newness fades, she feels something different every time. Whether they begin in comfort or seduction, whether she needs lightness and love or intensity and lust, each time she feels their mood in the way their bodies move together.)

She now craves the way her entire body shivers as he groans her name in that long low tone, so smooth and deep. He says it when she slides down, taking him slowly. Her body hovering over his, teasing with shallow movements until all he can do is say her name, _Emma Emma Emma_, before she gives in to what they both want. He says it when she drops to her knees, her lips wrapped around him, as his fingers thread through her hair, his rings catching and pulling with his grasp. He says as they fall asleep, face to face in their bed, in between light touches of lips that sometimes linger, legs brushing together and toes curling.

(She never used to like the sound of her name on a lover's lips. It felt false and empty, the sound grating at her. Always too intimate, _too much_, for what they were.)

(With him, it's never enough.)


	18. Feels Like Home

**Feels Like Home**

She's always felt at home near the water. She likes the way the ocean is so vast that you can stare out across the deep blue. She likes it when the water is calm on the horizon, the way that it makes her feel, like the world is infinite and all she has to do is jump in.

(She used to imagine that somewhere, out there, her parents were looking at the same sea, searching for her.)

(She stopped doing that after a while.)

Her favorite place in Storybrooke is the driftwood bench, out where Henry's castle used to be. It was the first place where she and Henry bonded, the first place where she began to feel that pull of home.

(When it was destroyed, she worried that it was a sign, that she wasn't wanted, wasn't supposed to be there, that Henry wasn't meant to be part of her.)

(She calls herself a superstitious fool. But then, after she finally believes, she sometimes visits and just wonders.)

The first time she takes Killian there, Henry teases her and calls it their fiery date. She supposes that it is, though dates should probably not involve sad tales and shots of rum from a shared flask. It's easy to share things with him there, in that spot, watching the water. Sometimes calm, sometimes the tide ripping through the water, forming rows and rows of white on blue.

(She packs a small basket of food, one day, and grabs his hand. Urging him to come with her, she threads her fingers with his, dragging him to their spot. He follows her lead, as always.)

(It's where she tells him that she loves him, lying limbs entwined on a blanket, clothes in disarray, minds content.)

* * *

_A/N: reviews are always appreciated!_


	19. Distracted

_a/n: So, filming has started once again (haha) and I am not a spoiler-free gal. So if you don't want even hints of speculation based on totally random set photos, do not read ahead. I repeat - this is all based on random set photos so it's not full-on spoiler, but it is based on filming stuff so proceed with caution if you care about that. :)_

* * *

She can still feel a ghost of sensation, her lips tingling with remembered desire, as her mother speaks to her - of Henry, of Regina, of the aftereffects of so much _drama. _She feels more crisis brewing. It's in the air, she feels, a wisp of chill that sends prickles across the back of her neck. She tries to concentrate on the moment, but her brain is scattered and she knows _exactly _why.

All she can think of is the light in his eyes as she leaned in, their lips touching, at first so sweetly until his hand slid into her hair and her breath caught, heart racing, and their mouths fused together. His eyes lit from within - with lust and that little something _more_, the thing she knows but dares not name.

She wants him, _so much. _His presence in her life and his steady, unwavering support. The comfort of his arms wrapped so tightly around her as their breath mingles and her nerves are set ablaze. But will _he_ be the one to run away this time, if she can't find the words to _say_ it?

When she feels his hand, gently wrapping around her arm, that same pull that she always senses around him emerges - the magnetic need to just _be_ in his space. Her mother gives her _the_ glance, that one special look that she's seen when he is around, the one that says _be careful. _Emma smiles at her and tells her she'll catch up in a moment.

As she turns to face him, their eyes catching and holding, she finds that she can read them so _clearly_. The buzzing in her mind fades, forgetting the chill, forgetting her other worries, until the only thing she thinks about - the only thing the feels - is the warmth of his body, standing close to her, smiling and flicking her hair with his hook. She focuses on the grin at his lips as he leans in closely.

She whispers against his lips, as they brush lightly, back and forth, "If you're sticking around Storybrooke, we might want to think about getting you some new clothes."

He pulls back and asks with another grin, wider than moments before, and an arch of his brow, "So I'm staying then?"

Instead of replying, she slides her arms around his waist and closes the distance between their bodies until they are so closely aligned that she can feel both their hearts at her chest.

"Aye," she says softly, leaning and leaning until their lips meet again.


	20. We are Marked, But We Survive

_a/n: written for cs au week on tumblr. it's just a bit of learning each other's scars. and then surprise!return of blackbeard. because, why not?_

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**We are Marked, But We Survive**

He learns about the small scar on her hand with a clenched jaw. Her eyes are sad as she relays the tale, even though she tells him with her words i_t's okay now_ and _really, I'm fine_ and _it was a long time ago_.

This concept of being _fine_ is an idiom blank with meaning for him. He has long since learned about acceptance of the past. He lives with one hand and one hook with relative ease and does not much miss his other hand because what's the point in missing some appendage. He certainly knows the feeling of anger and vengeance, the burning deep within to address wrongs and fight. All he had for so long with fight – raging against the monarchy and against the crocodile.

He even knows what it means to live long enough to forgive. He can still recall exactly how _empty_ he was, tied up in a chair, taunting his captors, prattling on about _revenge _and _satiation_. Lying throughout, completely devoid of feeling, until he let the Crocodile aboard his ship and he realized exactly what it was – forgiveness for _himself_.

(Even though concepts like time and distance are relative with him, they've nothing to do with acceptance or forgiveness or anger. They've certainly nothing to do with _fine._)

.

He learns that when she says she's _fine_ it's because she doesn't know how to assign blame upon anybody except herself.

.

He learns how to release her burdens with the brush of his hand against hers, fingers twining together. His lips upon her brow, her eyelids, her lips, the curve of her body where he neck slopes into her shoulders. His lips anywhere, until her entire body sighs.

.

She's reminded that she's in love with a pirate on the day that Blackbeard comes to town. The (other) legendary pirate sails into town, The Jolly Roger bursting through the harbor with a splash. She watches as he laughs it off, exclaiming to David that he's lucky he arrived not a moment earlier as the harbor had been covered with a sheet of ice, thick with magic.

Later that night, she threads her fingers through his hair as they stand together outside of Granny's, her family inside waiting for them.

"Are you okay?" she asks, concerned at his silence, the weight of an entire damn pirate ship between them.

He takes holder of her wrist, thumb stroking her skin as he replies, "I've no regrets, love, if that's what you're asking. Though she sure is a beautiful thing to behold."

Heat unfurls within her at the thought that she is worth so much to him, but she's reminded of a conversation they had not long after their return from the past, of Killian pacing in her empty apartment. Of his words, his worry that if he is to live there with her, she has to _know_.

So, she speaks the truth, "But Blackbeard should be dead."

.

She's reminded of his patience when the other pirate finally approaches them, looking every inch like the Captain Hook of cartoon fame. Minus the hook, of course. Red coat, twirling mustache, cascades of curls that some women might envy. But his face – it's a face hard and lined and full of cracks and craters.

"Well, my boy, it looks like you really have gone soft. I've your precious ship as proof."

His voice reminds Emma of something deep and dark. It's full of anger, of disdain, and maybe a hint of fear.

"You should be swimming the depths of Davy Jones' Locker by now, mate," Killian says calmly, ignoring the taunt, which only serves to enrage Blackbeard more.

"Your mermaid friend was kind enough to save me," he bites out.

"Ahh, so that's how she found her Prince. You gave in so easily, in the end, it seems."

"Even I, feared pirate, has learned not to tangle with a mermaid, boy. You'd best watch your back with that one."

With those parting words, the pirate quickly takes his leave, the ship disappearing as quickly as it came.

.

She asks him if he's worried, later on that evening. He tells her there's no use worrying over such a matter. They'll take everything as it comes at them, as they always do. Standing together.

.

She still watches him anyway. She watches as he slides his hand along the spyglass, always close by, always ready to keep watch for the next danger.


	21. the shape of things

**The Shape of Things**

She cannot pinpoint the moment in time when he had become so _essential_ to her, only that he is. She now knows it the same as she knows she must breathe air to survive, instinctual and just _there._)

She knows the moment she realized it was there, assuming he would join her in Granny's, at her side during the coronation announcement, during her own announcements. But that must not be when it began, because to miss the sensation she had to feel it first.

(When he wasn't there she felt empty, throat constricted and heart pounding.)

She doesn't have the same frame of reference, of a world full of magic and True Loves Kiss. And she's never had certainty of any kind before.

She knows that she sometimes tests and pushes, that she tried to make him leave, so she wouldn't want so much, hope for so much, feel so much.

(Is there enough apology adequate to make up for that?)

He's not so different with her now, still subtly pressing and engaging and supporting. Maybe his smile is a little wider, his teasing sharper — with wit and other edges. Edges that make her want to take his hand and drag him home in the middle of a council meeting and damn any consequences. Edges that pull her to him in the middle of the night, pressing against him as if his warmth could invade her insides.

There are still conversations to be had, but there are also moments, hidden from the rest, pressing up against stairwells until she breathlessly knocks on her parents door to visit with her brother.

There are wounds tended from battle with giant snow creatures and there are confrontations of magic and power, of fear, and finally of hope.

There are quiet moments, his hand in hers, fingers always moving, always brushing her skin, as if reassuring himself that she is real and there and will not disappear.

(She's said I love you before. She knows it's shape on her lips, it's taste in her mouth, it's sound in her voice.)

(But what are words against the sound of his heart racing as their lips meet, as she traces his scars, as she strips bare in front of him, asking him to take her as she is.)


	22. restless

**Restless**

She's lying in bed, restless and edgy. Her legs slide up and down, knees bending, sheets twisting beneath her toes. Her back arches off the mattress at the touch of his hand, so light that she can barely feel it on her face, but her entire body is so _aware. _Her skin, insanely sensitive to his touch, shivers extending through her arms, along her torso, down her legs.

"You've been thinking too hard," he said earlier that night, "I know this situation with Regina is unpleasant."

She'd huffed out a laugh because _unpleasant_ seemed an understatement.

"But," he'd continued as he dangled a silk scarf in front of her, "You have to give yourself permission to feel good, too."

And that is how she ended up here, blindfolded and completely nude, left aching and shivering at his touch, his hand and his lips wandering across her body, with her completely unaware as to where he'll go next.

He'd started simply enough, leaning in with a grin as he brushed his lips against her briefly, giving a quick nip of the teeth, tugging her bottom lip and releasing it quickly, her instinct to follow his lips with hers but he pulls away too quickly, leaving her wanting more.

He wraps the silk around her eyes and tells her to stop thinking and just _feel_. (She feels so much, she thinks – responsibility, guilt, fear, anger – that she's forgotten that she is allowed to feel the simply joy of _being_ with him. And isn't it just like him, she thinks, to know just what she needs before she can even voice it.)

Soon, he's pulled off her clothes, piece by piece, excruciatingly slowly. First her shirt, his hand tugging the material over her head. Then, his lips tracing along the sensitive skin at her neck, face buried in the curve where her shoulder begins, while his hand reaches around her back, fingers trailing slowly across her skin, the cool of his rings against her, equally shocking and soothing. He unclasps her bra as his tongue traces patters along her shoulder, down her arm, his teeth tugging at the straps of lace, until the garment can slide off her arms.

It isn't until he follows the same pattern with her jeans that her body completely betrays her. He traces the skin above her pants with his tongue before tugging at the denim with his teeth. His fingers soon joining until they are undone, he slides them down her legs slowly – so slowly, that by the time he's done, her back is arching and she can't help the breathy moans that escape her. He curls his finger under the lace edges of the last garment remaining, and she knows that he can feel just how _ready_ she is, until suddenly those are gone too, and she is lying completely bare in front of him, blindfold intact, her breath catching in anticipation.

He slows for a moment though, surprising her yet again. He doesn't attack her with lips and tongue and teeth, in a frenzy of lust, as she had expected. Instead he slides his body along hers his skin heated, the same as hers. (Somewhere along the way, he's divested himself of most of his clothes and she can't believe she was so distracted that she missed those sounds, the slide of his leathers down his legs, or the buckle of his belt unlatching.)

His head reaches hers, she can tell, because she can feel his breath against her neck as his hand cradles her face. His fingers trace her features – her brow, her cheekbones, along to her lips, his thumb tracing her lower lip, making her nerves tingle and her body restless.

She catches his thumb between her teeth and he growls in approval of her aggression.

She moans his name as he drifts down, the tension inside her increasing as he thumbs her nipples, tugs at them with his teeth, rolls them between his fingers – all designed to drive her mad until she begs him to touch her.

He complies, as his mouth drifts down her torso, to her waist, and lower. He teases her with his presence, his fingers sliding along her; just enough that her hips rise for more, but not enough that it quells the ache. His mouth teases her skin below her belly button, her hipbones, her inner thighs, until she moans his name again. He smiles against her as he finally presses his lips to her core.

(After she comes apart, she slides the blindfold off her face, and cups his face between her hands. She presses light kisses to his mouth, in between promises to return the favor.)

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_A/N: Hey y'all, I have an honest question, because it actually takes some time and effort to take these off tumblr and post here. Are people interested in me continuing to do so? _


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